Mind the gap? It’ll soon be a canyon.

In all my thirty-something years following football I can never remember a time where the gap between Celtic and rangers was as big as it is today. 

In every department our club is better, the squad, management, scouting, medical, boardroom, stadium, infrastructure – in every way possible, we’re better than them. 

Even the staunchest bluenose can now see past the SMSM continuity mythology and knows they are little more than a tribute act to the former club and can only hope to be second best, they also know that this will be the case for years to come and ten-in-a-row will be eclipsed. 

In today’s Daily Record, Barry Ferguson claims that rangers’ turmoil off the pitch is coming to an end, as the media are instead focusing on Pedro’s ramblings about cycles and his superb tumbler displays.  

Ferguson’s image in the media is going the way of his image as a football manager, out of his depth and not very clever.

The turmoil off the pitch is as evident as it’s ever been. 

Their image in world football is horrendous, numerous court cases, publicly racist fans, a squad not worth the same as Celtic’s reserves and a chairman who couldn’t seem to care less about the club. 

Their humiliating 5-1 hammering at home will be repeated a few times between now and the end of Brendan’s time at Celtic, as will defeats to the likes of Aberdeen, Hearts and Hibs. 

The assumption that rangers are only a few of Brother Pedro’s own players away from closing the gap is reliant upon Celtic remaining at their current level, which is obviously not going to happen. 

Celtic will strengthen, invest and improve on and off the field, whereas rangers will continue to trade infrastructure for survival, although there appears to be little left to offer. With Big Mike’s control over merchandising and the youth team withdrawing from competitive matches, future income is limited and more soft loans will be required as, to quote a pal, “they are a loss-making business without credit from a bank”.

Ibrox is in desperate need of repair and has been for some time, with the chairman pledging all season ticket money to improve the playing squad it seems the repairs will also be put on the back burner. Let’s hope (or not) that lessons have been learned from 2012 and taxes have been paid, I don’t think I could handle another summer of overindulgence in jelly and ice-cream. 

HH

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU DIG FOR

Last week I wrote a piece entitled, “When The Blind Eye Stops Turning”. I had discussed the SMSM’s obvious attitude change towards social media after the fallout of 2012 (RIP/LOL), pointing out that many of the journalists and football pundits we endure here in the west of Scotland, the very same scribes who once called us ‘Internet Bampots’, now have Twitter accounts themselves and regularly engage with their audience. Bloggers, independent journalists and the man on the tweet often contact their pundit pals to let them know they’ve got it wrong, made a spelling/grammar/punctuation mistake or simply enlightening them of their current public perception with the classic, “your a fanny!”.It was during a Twinteraction (see what I did there) with one of my personal favourites of the Scottish punditry fraternity, Graham Spiers, that I received an answer to a question on a subject avoided by most in the Fraternitati Simio Panis. 
Graham has been reporting on Scottish sport since I was old enough to know who the mason in the black was, he knows all too well of the treatment awaiting anyone who dare speak ill of the mighty Rangers. 

I had been following the unfolding events at the court of session in Edinburgh, where a punter was challenging Coral bookmakers refusal to pay out £250,000 on a bet that Rangers would be relegated in 2012. 

Now, anyone who knows anything about something that ever happened anywhere once, knows that Rangers died in 2012 after a CVA could not be agreed and administration and liquidation duly occurred. Hearts agreed a CVA and saved their club, history, badge, trophies and most of all, their dignity. They have a letter that proves it, Rangers don’t, a fact that can end many OldCo/NewCo debates (make a mental note, you’ll save a lot of time) sending the reanimated type straight to the default setting of denial and child abuse references. Just as classy as the old clubs fans, if not a little dimmer. 

The court case boiled down to a choice for Coral, deny Rangers are a new club, state they were relegated and pay out £250,000 – or – state relegation never happened as Rangers were liquidated and the new entity was allowed into the bottom tier of Scottish football (aka, the truth) and risk losing thousands of Rangers-loving customers and awaiting the usual blue-nosed backlash. I say “usual”, because it is completely taken for granted that anyone who publicly paints an imperfect picture of the proud once Prod-preferring club/company/tribute act , is in line for treatment such as threats, intimidation, harassment, personal details made public, careers ruined, even bombs and bullets in the post, it’s not a wise choice to make known Rangers’ troubles. 

I had remarked to Graham how the Coral case highlighted an air of fear around the SMSM when it came to reporting anything that might displease the Rangers fans. I added that he knew of it all too well, referring to his own abuse by upset ‘fans’ (fans don’t behave in a way that is detrimental to their clubs image) to which he replied, 

“The media tends to offer 1 of 4 answers on Q: ‘Is it a new Rangers FC?’

A: Yes

B: No

C: Don’t know

D: Do know but not saying”
This left me with even more questions but I decided to leave Graham out of it from there onwards, he has suffered enough. 

The Coral case threw up a number of revelations, to name a couple, the secrecy surrounding the five-way agreement and Rangers’ awarding of a European license from the SFA which should not have been issued. I’ll leave the experts to go into detail over these issues, as it is another issue which I have decided to tackle. 

Not one mainstream media outlet in Glasgow was mentioning the Coral case in any detail greater than the case itself, not a word about the many obvious contradictions to the long-running media narrative forced upon those of us fortunate enough to live in this part of the world. The journalist, who had been live tweeting from inside the courtroom throughout the entire case, even tweeted his willingness to speak live on-air to Radio Clyde’s Super Scoreboard the evening the case finished. They did not reciprocate any willingness to talk about the case. 

What is even more alarming than the very obvious selective journalism taking place, was the general acceptance of the public that this is just how it is in Glasgow. Football fans in the west of Scotland know and fully expect that they are going to be lied to when the local media report on Rangers, from finances to transfer ‘bids’, from pundits and commentators who praise the Ibrox atmosphere yet fail to mention sectarian singing and chants (any five year old listening would be able to give a decent rendition of The Billy Boys by half time), we were even told of Celtic chasing Walter Smith’s record of nine successive league championships, which was actually set by Jock Stein in the 60s. 

I contacted no fewer than twenty-six journalists, pundits, ex-players from various teams and many other figures in the world of Glasgow football journalism, with the same questions. Questions about fans reactions, stories being edited, a sense of bias – you get the gist. 

The responses were astounding, there are dozens of unhappy residents in our fish bowl, in my opinion it’s because the big hand that periodically chucked flakes of stinking fodder to them has disappeared, being replaced by the big hand’s dodgy pal who has been promising to feed them for ages but they’re still starving, or am I reading too much into things? A more cynical bhoy might remark on the many fish who have disappeared only to be replaced with new ones wearing wee blue fish goggles, but I certainly won’t, for now. 

The fact that Level 5 PR have blocked me on Twitter only pushes me to keep digging, I’ve never had anything to do with them, in any way whatsoever. Discrimination against bloggers?

I have never before worked on a subject that has immediately produced so much material to work with, quotes from professionals and outside interest as I have experienced over the last ten days or so. I only hope that I can continue my blogging from home and not from an underground bunker with all the necessary provisions required to survive a zombie attack. 

HH

WHEN THE BLIND EYE STOPS TURNING

Growing up in Glasgow can give a person many views the rest of the world would see as blinkered. 

Whether it’s the famous old ‘Glasgow’s Miles Better’ slogan or a freezing cold bottle of Irn Bru and a roll and sausage (square, mind) being the best hangover cure in the world, over time people mature and they begin to see things as they really are. 
There are, of course, exceptions to the rule, myths and legends that will forever live on in the minds of those who simply refuse to believe the truth, no matter how much evidence to the contrary lies before them. 

Many of you may think I am simply referring to the same club/new club continuity myth and other fantasies emitting from Ibrox via Level 5 PR, The Daily Record and other compliant media outlets. I’m not. 

There has been a monumental shift in the media since 2012, albeit not the type of shift that was and is still needed, but a noteworthy change nonetheless. 

It used to be quite fashionable among the Scottish press to ridicule stories circulating on social media, referring to the sources as “Internet bampots” (Hugh Keevins – Radio Clyde) and “Celtic fans out to stir up trouble with nonsense” (take your pick). 

Fast-forward to now and we have columns full of tweets and quotes from fans and bloggers, the majority of journalists and pundits also now have their own twitter accounts. 

One can’t help but wonder if things would have turned out differently for the now deceased Rangers had the media given accounts such as RangersTaxCase and CharlotteFakes any sort of respect at all. 

With newspaper sales plummeting and their credibility shrinking day by day, it’s clear the SMSM are clutching at straws to retain an audience. 

The Celtic fans don’t buy them because of the lies they printed and the rangers fans will stop buying them the more truth they print.

As Fergus McCann once said, “Karma, you are one sexy bitch.”

Hail Hail

ENERGY DRINK COMPANY CONSIDERS RANGERS INVESTMENT

With the fifth anniversary of the liquidation of Rangers Football Club 1872-2012 on the horizon, there finally seems to be some promising news on the future finances of the new club. 
This weekend, 8,000 loyal fans traveled to Germany to watch the new entity take on RB Leipzig, who currently lie second in the Bundesliga, in a friendly match while the SPFL is on its winter break. While many see this as merely a game to keep the players fitness levels up over the break, reports have suggested that this match was a shop-window for investors. The rumours were that energy drinks giant Red Bull, the main sponsors of the Leipzig club, were considering investing in the new Rangers, which would give them the huge amount of funding needed to stop Celtic’s total domination of Scottish football for the foreseeable future. 

This was met with unbridled joy from the loyal Rangers fans, who have watched their new club battle through the lower leagues in Scotland for the last five years, with no trophies won worth talking about. 

There was, however, some confusion over the source of the investment that had been offered to the Ibrox club. A spokesperson from Red Bull said, “We have no idea where this story has came from. The idea that Red Bull would invest in a club with no history, no trophies and fans that would rather stump up a collective £2,000,000 plus on a day out in Germany than put it towards the rebuilding of the many areas of their club that need sorted out, is ludicrous.”

The confusion was cleared up soon after our conversation with Red Bull, when we received an email from another energy drinks company stating, “We at Emerge are happy to consider investment in The Rangers. A cheaper version of another brand, cheaply put together and with a target audience of unemployed blue-vally swallyers is right up our street.”

THE CURIOUS CASE OF BILLY THE BOTTON

In the days of the now deceased Rangers Football Club 1872-2012 (IL), their fans enjoyed years of success due to the clubs financial superiority over the rest of Scottish football. This gave the average bluenose plenty of ammo to win football-based arguments, it also gave the mainstream media a target audience that was as easy to reach as David Murray on an escalator, turning Glasgow based tabloids into mere fanzines, authored by journalists so biased they were referred to by much better people than this author as ‘fans with typewriters’.The aforementioned Murray had his media lapdogs well trained by the time OldCo were but half the way to equalling Celtic’s record of nine successive league titles in a row. Unquestioned by the media and unchallenged by their supporters, Murray was given a free pass for over a decade, allowing him to destroy the club through a string of reckless financial practices and end 140 years of history. 

Since the reformation of the Ibrox based club, the continuity myth has been argued quite vigorously by their supporters, now affectionately referred to as zombies by the rest of football fans in Scotland and beyond. However, recent times have seen the debating skills of the average zombie deteriorate somewhat, mainly due to their many failings on and off the pitch. 

The old Rangers would never have had a guy like Mike Ashley in control of so much of their merchandising rights, nor would they be reliant on soft loans from outside sources or loan players on the downward curve of their careers to keep them going until the end of the season. They certainly would never have allowed Celtic to make public the fact that a £40,000 bill for damage caused by their fans to the toilets at Celtic Park had still not been paid some months later, underlining the overall state of the new clubs finances. 

A lot of the goings on around Ibrox these days are anything but alarming to the NewCo loyal, players waiting two weeks for scans highlights the lack of decent medical facilities, only borrowing players from the English league shows a limited scouting set-up and a severe lack of transfer funds. The once compliant media also seem to have had enough of the amateurish way the Govan club have been behaving, with many journalists beginning to question if rather than when Rangers will be able to close the gap between themselves and the champions. Add the issues of stadium repairs, average-at-best performances, failed marquee signings and a chairman who is reportedly “only there to make sure he gets what he is owed from losing millions when OldCo died” and you are left with not many argument winning statements. These days they end arguments by making jokes about child abuse, threats, intimidation, trolling, basically anything but admit the truth and do as Celtic fans did in 1994 – save their club. 

On the 50th anniversary of Celtic lifting the European Cup in Lisbon, the team are close to matching the Lisbon Lions’ record for consecutive games without losing, they currently sit 19 points clear at the top of the league with a game in hand and are 33 goals better off than their blue neighbours. It really is no wonder they’re blue. 

Hail Hail.